Exactly my point.
Smokeless powder in a cartridge can create more pressure than BP - but not when it's laying loose in a pile. That whole analogy was just wrong.
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Smokeless powder in muzzleloader?
- Thread starter War Song
- Start date
Exactly my point.
Smokeless powder in a cartridge can create more pressure than BP - but not when it's laying loose in a pile. That whole analogy was just wrong.
antiqueguy
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- windsor ontario
I would never even think about things like buckhorn 209 in anything but a inline(it was made for inlines its a smokeless but a volume equivalent smokeless). smokeless in a muzzleloader is not something id even toy with they burn different and smokeless also needs some air space meaning you also need the leave a gap between the bullet and powder not a good idea.
antiqueguy
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- windsor ontario
btw a lot of muzzleloader barrels are 4140 or 4130 but chromoly steels are not needed for black powder firearms with a lead bullet or plastic sabot(even though most inlines most likely use a chromoly barrel) chromoly steels are also more brittle and will split or break apart rather then bulging that softer less carbon steels do
which comes back to my point of smokeless powder pressures going exponential beyond a certain point.
cheers mooncoon
Basically I think that if a person can ignore Black powder only warnings on muzzleloader barrels and ignore all data that states that using smokeless in a muzzleloader is dangerous and still think that they because they are smarter than everyone else can safely do it then I believe that we are all wasting our time because as Forrest Gump said stupid is as stupid does.
?
The over all theme of what you are reading is "don't use smokeless powder in a muzzle loader". The rest of the fluff doesn't matter.
If the OP chooses to, then it's his life to play Russian Roulette with...
Even the older repro cap and ball revolvers are black powder only - Uberti used different metallurgy in their cap and ball vs cartridge revolvers until more recently. Means if you use one of those conversion cylinders in one you ought to shoot BP cartridge loads thru it.
- Location
- Algoma region
No smokeless in a muzzleloader....Never.
Why even risk it?
Why even risk it?
Okay guys, I decided to disprove all of you who said I couldn't do it, and I loaded about 50 grains of Green Dot into the end of my .50 cal CVA in-line with a patched lead ball. What happened after I pulled the trigger was amazing, the ball flew out at the speed of light, did a spiral spin up into the air, than fell down to the ground with an explosion of green sparks and smoke, and Ozzy Osbourne emerged from the smoke and told me I had reached the Seventh Circle of Hell!!!
Alas, no - I did not post this thread with the expectation being egged on to do any physical experimentation, it was just technical small talk. Some of the comments seem to assume I was really stupid enough try? I was just curious, and wanted to know more, and of course I like to question people's answers - all part of learning from others. I wasn't really going to put smokeless into a piece of machinery that says not to (that would void the warranty!). In my field (aviation), using a single wrong bolt or installing flammable insulation instead of non-flammable would result in spectacular but tragic consequences (But we still need to know the "why" behind the "not").
For those that posted constructive answers, I really appreciate you sharing your knowledge with me. This question started out while I was reading about the history of smokeless, and there was mention of folks back in the day pouring the new and untried smokeless into their muzzle-loaders. Bad things happened, but I still wanted to know if it was practical with today's technology.
To summarize, smokeless powder in a muzzleloader is a bad idea because:
1. Less-than-desirable control circumstances within the muzzleloading system. You have to worry about air space, consistent weighing of small-amounts of powder in field conditions, compactness of powder, tightness of bullets in bore, etc. Smokeless is fine in BP systems that utilize cartridges, because in a cartridge you can control all these factors. Without this control, you get wildly fluctuating peak pressures.
2. Even if you built a front loader gun to withstand smokeless, there are a million of things that can go err, because human nature adds a whole bunch of factors to the equation of what can go wrong. Evidence as put by consumer experiences with the Savage ML.
3. A smokeless barrel is prohibitively expensive in a muzzleloader, at least for most of us when we purchase a single-shot firearm. I did a price check. a Green Mountain .50 cal 36" black powder barrel runs about 140 dollars, a custom .50 cal 36" barrel for something like a Barett M82 costs at least 450 dollars.
Why the difference? The black powder 50 cal is made from inexpensive 1137 steel stock with a tensile strength of 85,000 psi, and the smokeless 50 cal is made from 4140 chrome-moly steel that must be precisely heat-treated and tempered to a tensile strength of 120,000 psi. Than you have the tooling costs associated with machining a much harder/stronger steel.
4. After all the cost and risk factors, the advantage gain by shooting smokeless is little, except for ease of cleaning and reduction in corrosion.
So alas for these reasons, smokeless is simply too "wild" for the contemporary muzzle-loading system. It is analogous to using gasoline instead of water as the medium inside a steam engine. Possible, but with enormous risks.
Alas, no - I did not post this thread with the expectation being egged on to do any physical experimentation, it was just technical small talk. Some of the comments seem to assume I was really stupid enough try? I was just curious, and wanted to know more, and of course I like to question people's answers - all part of learning from others. I wasn't really going to put smokeless into a piece of machinery that says not to (that would void the warranty!). In my field (aviation), using a single wrong bolt or installing flammable insulation instead of non-flammable would result in spectacular but tragic consequences (But we still need to know the "why" behind the "not").
For those that posted constructive answers, I really appreciate you sharing your knowledge with me. This question started out while I was reading about the history of smokeless, and there was mention of folks back in the day pouring the new and untried smokeless into their muzzle-loaders. Bad things happened, but I still wanted to know if it was practical with today's technology.
To summarize, smokeless powder in a muzzleloader is a bad idea because:
1. Less-than-desirable control circumstances within the muzzleloading system. You have to worry about air space, consistent weighing of small-amounts of powder in field conditions, compactness of powder, tightness of bullets in bore, etc. Smokeless is fine in BP systems that utilize cartridges, because in a cartridge you can control all these factors. Without this control, you get wildly fluctuating peak pressures.
2. Even if you built a front loader gun to withstand smokeless, there are a million of things that can go err, because human nature adds a whole bunch of factors to the equation of what can go wrong. Evidence as put by consumer experiences with the Savage ML.
3. A smokeless barrel is prohibitively expensive in a muzzleloader, at least for most of us when we purchase a single-shot firearm. I did a price check. a Green Mountain .50 cal 36" black powder barrel runs about 140 dollars, a custom .50 cal 36" barrel for something like a Barett M82 costs at least 450 dollars.
Why the difference? The black powder 50 cal is made from inexpensive 1137 steel stock with a tensile strength of 85,000 psi, and the smokeless 50 cal is made from 4140 chrome-moly steel that must be precisely heat-treated and tempered to a tensile strength of 120,000 psi. Than you have the tooling costs associated with machining a much harder/stronger steel.
4. After all the cost and risk factors, the advantage gain by shooting smokeless is little, except for ease of cleaning and reduction in corrosion.
So alas for these reasons, smokeless is simply too "wild" for the contemporary muzzle-loading system. It is analogous to using gasoline instead of water as the medium inside a steam engine. Possible, but with enormous risks.
...OMG, he's in the aviation field. I can read the headlines now!? And, the analogy is laboured to be polite.
Look, it wasn't my fault those Malaysian flyboys got lost, I followed the instructions to re-installing the navigation system as best I could...
Oh dear, don't tell us that you learned avionics off the internet!?! ;-)
If you have a technical orientation, there's a limited amount of free info available for learning the fundamental science of internal ballistics. I have found some resources in the form of declassified U.S. Army technical doc's, which require a certain level of grad-school-level math/physics/engineering. Wolf Publication's 'Pressure Factors' by Prof. Brownell (not the shooting supply guy) is an excellent introduction that gets fairly technical.
I can appreciate the curiosity when you ask questions and get replies from people who insist they know why you should never do something, as in "Thus it is written: thou shalt not!", without explaining why. My own experience has been to proceed very cautiously, only after extensive research.
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Mess around with smokeless powders in a muzzle loader and you just might make next year's Darwin Awards list..... and with a closed-casket funeral because of the breech plug imbedded in your forehead and maybe a hand or two missing.
^ Don't candy coat it!?
For the OP and anyone else dumb enough to not believe what we have said, maybe they will believe the manufacturer who actually did try it. Anyone who trys it themselves WILL qualify for the Darwin awards eventually.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=gmsBF6CXs18
The video you shared has 120 grs (not 12.0, but 120.0) of HS-6 being used! The strongest bolt action rifle ever devised would explode into tiny pieces with 1/2 of that. So what exactly did the video prove with regards to this thread?
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